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A Comeback for Negro Leagues Museum

A display of player statues at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.Credit
Drew Anthony Smith for The New York Times

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With an actor’s showmanship, a man wearing black glasses and a white fedora described the player behind each of the 10 bronze statues that greeted a small group of visitors inside the lobby of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

He pointed to a catcher. “The legendary Josh Gibson, who many will call the black Babe Ruth,” he said, adding that others “call Ruth the white Josh Gibson.”

He pointed to the batter, Martín Dihigo, who played all nine positions, and said, “The only baseball player in the history of the sport to be in five different countries’ baseball Hall of Fame.” Dihigo is honored in Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Cooperstown, N.Y.

In 15 minutes, the man had described each player. Then, he introduced himself.

Five years ago, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, a privately funded nonprofit organization, was on the verge of a collapse. Its finances were in disarray, and many of its longtime donors and board members were dissatisfied. Some corporate sponsors said they felt alienated, and the stream of visitors had slowed to a trickle. Even supporters wondered whether the museum would survive, and the recession did not help.

Many museum officials and supporters said they felt the museum had lost its way after the 2006 death of Buck O’Neil, a first baseman and manager in the Negro leagues, mostly with the Kansas City Monarchs. O’Neil had become the face of the museum as its most ardent promoter. Kendrick, a close friend of O’Neil’s and the museum’s marketing director for 12 years, left in 2010, a year after being passed over for president.

But Kendrick has returned, and attendance has increased, to almost 60,000 visitors last year. Relationships with community leaders have been repaired. And the museum, the only major one of its kind in the United States, had a $300,000 profit in 2012, its most successful year since 2007.

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Bob Kendrick is the museum’s president.Credit
Drew Anthony Smith for The New York Times

“We’re talking about an institution that played such a pivotal role in the social advancement of America that most people don’t know,” Kendrick said of the Negro leagues, which operated between 1920 and 1960. “It’s so much bigger than the game of baseball.”

The museum, which opened in 1991, displays uniforms from the 1920s and 1930s, along with vintage posters, photographs and signed balls. It also shows videos of O’Neil describing what it was like to play when baseball was segregated. In 2006, 17 players and executives from the Negro leagues were inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in large part because of O’Neil and the Negro leagues museum.

In 2009, the board selected Greg Baker, a former assistant to the Kansas City manager, as the museum’s new president in a contentious 8-7 vote. Baker charted a new path that diverged from the one that O’Neil had established through his own storytelling and charm, upsetting many longtime supporters, several board members said.

In 2009, Baker told The Kansas City Star: “People understood Buck very well, but the museum operated in his shadow. For it to survive, we’ve got to change that.”

Mamie Hughes, a member of the board of directors whose father, James Samuel Currie, had played in the Negro leagues, said of Baker: “His knowledge was just so limited. I respected him, but I didn’t feel he was qualified.”

Local sponsors found themselves sidelined, and some ended their support. “We were all very puzzled why our involvement was no longer being encouraged,” said Nancy Pagel, the marketing director for Hy-Vee, a supermarket chain in the Midwest that had held an annual fund-raiser for the museum since 2002. “We were extremely worried about the museum.”

Museum officials pointed to the Legacy Awards in 2010, the museum’s biggest annual event, as perhaps the institution’s lowest point. The ceremony, which recognizes the best major league players from the previous season, had been held in the nearby Gem Theater. But in 2010, the ceremony was moved to a larger site with more costly food and entertainment in hopes of increasing attendance. The strategy failed.

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A display of uniforms and other items from the Negro leagues, which operated between 1920 and 1960.Credit
Drew Anthony Smith for The New York Times

“We had never lost the kind of money we had lost that year in putting on the Legacy Awards,” said Betty Brown, the board’s chairwoman.

A month later, Kendrick left the museum for a job at the National Sports Center for the Disabled.

Baker had built relationships with families of Negro league players, but the institution’s finances worsened. In 2009, the museum lost more than $300,000, its worst year ever.

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“It was an extremely difficult task given the financial situation,” said David Gershon, a longtime supporter of the museum. “I thought Greg was doing a great job. Sometimes things just don’t work out.”

Baker resigned in 2010 under pressure from the board. He declined requests for an interview.

Searching for a way forward, museum officials decided to try to persuade Kendrick to return.

“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hurt the first time around,” Kendrick said. “As much as I tried to be rational, Buck was on the other shoulder saying, ‘Come on home.’ ”

Kendrick returned as president in April 2011. Board members and museum officials said the financial turnaround was immediate. Kendrick held a series of successful events celebrating O’Neil’s 100th birthday, signaling that O’Neil’s presence would remain a fixture of the museum.

“As soon as we brought Bob back, things began to change,” Brown said.

This year, the museum, which has a budget of about $1.1 million, held a gala featuring the Jackie Robinson movie “42,” and raised nearly $100,000. Harrison Ford and Chadwick Boseman, who played Robinson, attended, as did several players from the Kansas City Royals. The event received so much attention that it prompted a first for the museum: Corporate sponsors had to be turned away.

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A room typical of the ones that players would stay in on the road is on display at the museum, which opened in 1991 in Kansas City, Mo.Credit
Drew Anthony Smith for The New York Times

It was also a boon that Kansas City hosted the All-Star Game in 2012, bringing Hall of Famers like Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron and Tony Gwynn to the museum to discuss the influence of the Negro leagues on the major leagues. Commissioner Bud Selig made his first visit to the museum that week.

Kansas City officials have taken notice. Jermaine Reed, a Kansas City councilman, led a push for the city to contribute $130,000 to refurbish the museum, which is in his district.

“This is where black baseball started,” he said “You have to preserve the history.”

The museum received $250,000 from the state of Missouri last week to help finance operations. The Washington Nationals, interested in their city’s rich Negro leagues history, have been in discussions with the institution to form a partnership.

But Kendrick cannot count on another movie or All-Star game to attract visitors to the museum, so he and his staff are creating small events to promote the museum, which renewed its relationship with Hy-Vee. The museum recently held a hot dog festival that featured Dodger dogs, Fenway franks and bratwursts from Milwaukee.

The organization also is planning a traveling exhibition next year that features the stories of Hispanic players in the Negro leagues and how the leagues helped push Latin American players into the majors.

“These broader stories need to be told, and if we’re not going to tell then who will?” Kendrick asked.

On a recent Tuesday, Kourtney Thompson, a teacher from Michigan, spent two hours poring through the museum’s exhibits. His high school baseball coach, Ronald Teasley, played in the Negro leagues. Thompson learned where he played — a right-handed outfielder for the New York Cubans — and his nickname, School Boy.

“You can go in there and wonder and look at the accomplishments of people,” Thompson said. “It adds an aspect to our experience that’s missing when you look at the mainstream history.”

He added: “I haven’t been to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I’m glad I came to see this first.”